This Week in RPGs: ENnie Voting Opens, Critical Role Launches Age of Umbra, and Discworld Hits Shelves (17th July 2026)

Free RPG Day is well behind us now and the industry’s settled into that mid-summer stretch where a lot of the year’s bigger announcements start paying off. This week brought the opening of ENnie Awards voting, a genuinely interesting pivot from Critical Role, and a retail release for one of the more anticipated licensed games of the year. Let’s get into what happened.

Story	What Happened
2026 ENnie Awards	Nominee voting open July 10–19; new Best Solo Game category; Daggerheart and Legend in the Mist lead nominations; winners announced July 31 at Gen Con
Critical Role	Launched “Age of Umbra: Sallowlands,” blending livestream content with direct product preorders; recent EU tour stops in Berlin (July 6) and Edinburgh (July 12)
Dragonlance: War Wizard	352-page hardcover confirmed for Aug 4, first in a new trilogy
Arcana Unleashed	High-magic D&D rulebook slated for Sept 16
Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork	Post-Kickstarter retail release now available
Twilight Sword	Zelda/Final Fantasy-inspired fantasy RPG shipping to backers

🏆 2026 ENnie Awards Voting Is Open

The nominee list for this year’s ENnies dropped with a new Best Solo Game category joining the lineup, and public voting opened on July 10, running through July 19. Daggerheart and Legend in the Mist both show up repeatedly across categories, alongside smaller press darlings like The Spark Devil and Tomb of a Thousand Doors. Winners get announced July 31 at Gen Con.

If you’ve been on the fence about trying Daggerheart, its strong showing across multiple nomination categories is as good a nudge as any. We covered what makes it distinct from the usual fantasy default in our Daggerheart review, and if the nominations convince you to actually sit down and play, our first Daggerheart session guide walks through what to expect at the table.

🌒 Critical Role’s Age of Umbra Begins

Critical Role launched Age of Umbra: Sallowlands this week, a project that bridges their live-streamed content directly with pre-orderable products rather than treating the two as separate business lines. It’s a notable structural shift for a company that’s typically kept its actual-play content and its product releases on more distinct tracks.

Combined with their previously announced two new RPG lines and their ongoing 2026 European tour, which included stops in Berlin on July 6 and Edinburgh on July 12, it’s clear Critical Role is leaning harder into being a multi-format publisher rather than just a streaming phenomenon.

📖 Dragonlance and the Road to Gen Con

Wizards of the Coast confirmed Dragonlance: War Wizard as a 352-page hardcover releasing August 4, the first book in a new trilogy. It’s part of a broader pattern of D&D leaning on established setting nostalgia this year, and preorders are already up. Separately, an Arcana Unleashed rulebook covering high-magic options is slated for September 16. Neither is out yet, but both are worth flagging now if you’re the type to plan your Gen Con purchases in advance rather than getting swept up on the show floor.

🎭 Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork Hits Retail

Following a successful Kickstarter, Discworld: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork is now making its way to general retail this month. Licensed tabletop adaptations of beloved fiction are a mixed bag as a rule, but Discworld’s blend of dry humor and genuinely weird worldbuilding tends to translate better to tabletop than most. If your group has been searching for a lighter tonal palate cleanser between heavier campaigns, this is worth a look now that it’s easier to actually get a copy.

For groups looking to run a genuinely comedic campaign rather than just a comedic one-shot, our running comedy one-shots guide has some tonal pacing advice that carries over well to a game built around absurdist humor.

⚔️ Twilight Sword Ships to Backers

Twilight Sword, a fantasy RPG drawing explicit inspiration from classic action-adventure video games like Zelda and Final Fantasy, began shipping to backers this month. It’s a good example of the growing lane of TTRPGs that lean into video game structure and pacing rather than traditional tabletop convention, a trend that’s been picking up steam alongside crunchier tactical systems. If your table has been curious about systems that borrow more from video games than from D&D’s lineage, this is one to watch once wider reviews start coming in.

🎯 GM Corner: What to Watch This Week

With ENnie voting open and a fresh wave of licensed and video-game-adjacent systems entering the market, this is a good week to think about whether your current system is actually serving your table or just the one you defaulted to. If you’re weighing options for a new campaign, our fantasy RPG systems ranked guide is a useful gut check before committing.

🔜 Next Week in RPGs

We’re keeping an eye on the final days of ENnie voting, any further Critical Role Age of Umbra rollout details, and early impressions once Twilight Sword and Discworld get into more hands. See you next week for another roundup.